When two ex-WW1 heroes took off 99 years ago from France they hoped to become the first fliers to complete a non-stop flight across the Atlantic.
But neither they nor their biplane were ever seen again.
“Planes took off from everywhere including Portland, Maine looking for them,” says searcher and historian Ric Gillespie, founder of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery.
Gillespie is “one of the world’s leading investigators of aviation cold cases,” says journalist Miles O’Brien, himself a pilot and flying fanatic.
O’Brien and Gillespie are teaming up on a new podcast investigating the loss of L’Oiseau Blanc, also known as the White Bird.
Gillespie’s decades-long search for the White Bird, which helped launch his recovery organization, “remains one of the most fascinating unsolved investigations in aviation history,” O’Brien says.
The French Levasseur PL.8 biplane disappeared in 1927 trying to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Paris and New York City to compete for the “Orteig Prize.”
French World War I aviation heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli, who took off from Paris on May 8, 1927, were last seen over Ireland.
Less than two weeks later, Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis and claimed the $25,000 prize.
The disappearance of L’Oiseau Blanc is considered one of the great mysteries in the history of aviation.
Many rumors circulated about the fate of the aircraft and crew, with mainstream opinion at the time being that it was probably lost in a squall over the Atlantic.
Investigations starting in the 1980s suggest that it may have crashed in Maine or along the coast between Portland and Newfoundland.
As the 100th anniversary of the ill-fated flight approaches, O’Brien and Gillespie are hoping to help solve its disappearance.
“The Hunt for the White Bird” is the name of their investigation.
Maine Coast To Be Scoured for Crashed 1927 Trans-Atlantic Flight From Paris
By Ted Cohen
